There is a immature star that for the last eight ten has been gobble up the magnetic disk of gas and debris that palisade it .

The objective , called FU Orionis , is a variable star that   in the 1930s suddenly became 100 meter brighter . The increase in luminosity was due to a three - calendar month bust of gas , which led the star to heat up the interior of the disk to 7,000 Kelvin ( 12,000 ° F / 6,700 ° C ) .

The effect was the most hefty ever seen in a Sun - like star , and stargazer believe it might have implication for   how planetary organisation like ours form .

" By study FU Orionis , we ’re witness the right-down baby year of a solar system , " Joel Green , a project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore , Maryland , said in astatement .   " Our own sun may have go through a standardized brightening , which would have been a crucial step in the formation of Earth and other planets in our Solar System . "

Green and his squad used both   late observations from the plane observatorySOFIAand data point from 2004 collected byNASA ’s Spitzer Space Telescope . unite the two allow the researcher to study if and how the maven ’s behavior has changed over the years .

In the last 12 years , there has been a 13 percent step-down in   infrared brightness at shorter wavelength but not at long wavelengths , an indication that the star has been scooping up the hottest and near material around .

" A step-down in the hottest gas means that the whizz is eat the innermost part of the disk , but the rest of the disk has essentially not switch in the last 12 years , " Green say . " This solution is reproducible with data processor model , but for the first meter we are able to affirm the theory with observations . "

Green has presented these final result at the American Astronomical Meeting in San Diego this week . He and his squad also compare the recent observation with historical data , and figure that FU Orionis has eaten the combining weight of 18 Jupiters in the last 80 years .

The feeding hysteria is expected to last for another few hundred years , with   the researchers convince that it will have a profound upshot on the protoplanetary magnetic disk fence in FU Orionis . If the Sun had undergo such a phase angle , it   could explain the dissimilar chemistry between Earth and Mars .